Family on Sinking Boat off California Coast Not Found, 2 Children on Board

Several distress calls were made, the passengers planned to abandon ship

The Coast Guard is working to find a family that went missing in a boat, off the California coast

The Coast Guard is still looking for a sinking sailboat off the coast of Central California. There is no confirmed information about the name of the boat, its location or the names of the passengers at this point.

According to the Star Tribune, authorities know that a family of four, possibly including two children under the age of 8, is on board. A married couple, their 4-year-old son and his cousin could be on board.

[admark=1]"There is still no information on where the boat was coming from, where it was going or who the people on board are," said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mike Lutz.

They set sail in the area west of Monterey Bay on Sunday, February 24, in a 29-foot (8.8-m) boat. That afternoon, they issued a distress call, alerting officials about the sailboat taking on water and its communication devices failing.

Coast Guard Lt. Heather Lampert describes that the signal has been used to determine the approximate position of the boat, presumably located 60 miles (96.5 km) west of Monterey Bay, 100 miles (161 km) south of San Francisco.

A rough seas alert had been issued for the weekend in the region, and water temperatures of 40 F – 50 F (4.4 C – 10 C) were recorded.

Other messages indicated that the passengers were abandoning ship. Officials have listened to the recorded S.O.S. messages, and report that the boat's name might be Charmblow.

"Coast Guard, Coast Guard, we are abandoning ship. This is the (Charmblow), we are abandoning ship," a man said.

Before losing communication with the dispatcher, he described that they were trying to build a raft using a cooler and a life-preserver ring.

Since the vessel is not equipped with a GPS system and no record of it has been found in Californian harbors, the Coast Guard will continue the search for the missing family by sending out crews to scour the area.

"We will just saturate the search area with as many assets as we can, so we can hopefully rescue them," Lutz says.